


Workouts and Eavesdropping

by Littlejaybird94



Category: Marvel, Young Avengers
Genre: Eli and Nate being jerky bros, M/M, Pre-Canon, and billy needing to mind his own business and focus on his magic, relationship building, teddy needing to sort himself out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-03
Updated: 2012-08-03
Packaged: 2017-11-11 08:10:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/476432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlejaybird94/pseuds/Littlejaybird94
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Seriously man, you got it bad.”<br/>“Shut- up- Eli- I- swear-“<br/>“Swear what? You want me to drop you on your head?”<br/>“Eli, be nice, you mustn’t tease someone who is in love. It'll push them to do irrational things.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Workouts and Eavesdropping

Okay, you got grip, right?” 

“Yeah man, we got you, now work. Go for it!”

Teddy gritted his teeth and clenched his eyes shut, feeling a burning pain shoot up his thighs and stomach. He felt hands coated in sweat slide up along his calves and he readjusted his feet, hooking them more securely behind the other two boy’s shoulders.

“You don’t have me right, c’mon here.” He let his wings press against the floor so Eli and Nate could readjust their hold on his legs.

They had been working out for the past hour and this was the hardest exercise they had to do. Nate and Eli were standing, knees slightly bent, holding Teddy by his legs, their forearms hooked under his calves as their hands held under his knees. Their other hands held the changeling’s thigh, just above the knee so Teddy could hook his feet behind their shoulders. With their knees pressed against Teddy’s lower back, Teddy could do a cross between sit-ups and chin-ups. But he wasn’t the only one working hard. Nate and Eli had to hold all of Teddy’s body wait between them, and with him throwing himself into sitting position and lowering himself back down, till his head was centimeters above the floor, the pair had to try remain steady, holding the other boy securely as to not drop him on his head. 

And after an hour of other training, this was beginning to get taxing. The sweat rolling off Eli and Nate’s foreheads showed that they were working just as hard as their teammate and it made Teddy grin to himself, despite gritting his teeth.

“Don’t- Let- Go-!” He said, words stilted by his jerky, forced movements. Eli gave him a glare and Nate smirked.

“Rightio Altman. We won’t so long as you beat your record.”

Teddy bit his lips and frowned. His record had been three hundred and seven the last time they’d done this. He was only on two hundred and sixty four.

“C’mon- man! That- heart- less!”

“No way, Teddy, you don’t want us to drop you, you work! Earn it!” Eli’s voice shook a little and his eyes widened for a moment as Teddy pulled himself up a little more forcefully in response to the super-soldier’s words. 

“Al- righty- then…”

“Hey man,” Nate turned his head a little, facing Eli. “Has Billy really been up there all training?”

Eli tried to shrug but figured it was a bad idea as Teddy’s foot jerked against his shoulder. “I suppose so. But that’s good, right? Don’t want him, do we distracted Lover Boy?”

Teddy shot Eli a glare and he growled, trying to ignore the conversation his friends were having.

Billy didn’t train with them when they worked like this. Being a magic-wielder, Nate had told him it was best to train alone for a while, at least till he could control his powers a little better. Billy had been a little disheartened at first, since his team mate obviously didn’t trust him to train around the rest of them, but when Teddy had seen his disappointment he assured Billy it was just for a little while, and the team would be counting the days till he could join them, Billy couldn’t help but smile. The broader blonde boy had somewhat intimidated him at first, it was people like that after all that used to torment him at school.

But Teddy seemed different. He went out of his way to say ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ to Billy when he arrived and left. He would make sure he was aware of their team progress and Nate’s plans if his mom made him stay behind and babysit his brothers or do homework. He even seemed to get mad when Billy had told him that people at school had beaten up on him for being different. He was too good to be true and that kind of scared Billy. 

In the end, that didn’t matter. He wouldn’t dream of trying to be more that friends with Teddy. There must a line of girls a mile long waiting to throw themselves at him, despite what he had said about being quiet and not confident in himself. If Billy looked like that, he would probably walk around with as little clothing as he could, simply because he could.

He smirked a little at the thought, but quickly stopped as he felt his balance tip a little. He was sitting, levitating in a barely visible blue sphere, one level above the other Young Avengers. Since the mansion was so run down, part of the floor above the basement had given way, so when the rest of the team trained in the concrete lined room, Billy took himself upstairs and sat on the floor, far away enough to not get under their feet and for him not to get too distracted.

Carefully, he lowered himself back onto the ground and started again. He closed his eyes and focused all his thoughts on the small pool of warmth in his stomach. He felt a strange awareness in his mind, as if he had cut the circulation to the rest of his body and his blood was pooling in his head, and he felt himself begin to rise off the wooden floor. Once he was about half a meter off the ground, her placed his hands on his crossed legs and opened his eyes. He could see the sparks of energy weaving around him, creating the strange sphere that he created to keep the sounds of the boys working out downstairs from reaching his ears. This had been the only way he could keep his concentration long enough to get any decent training down.

He was, however, guilty of listening in, not all the time, just no and then. Eli’s sounded like he was trying to kill someone when he trained, and that kind of put Billy off a little and made him want to stick clear of the angry, dark boy. Nate was quieter, since his training with more with his tech than his body, though he would assist Eli and Teddy when they needed it, but even then, he remained pretty silent. But Teddy… Billy had searched his fair share of the internet and seen enough movies to know why the noises Teddy made caught his attention like they did. The way the air hissed between his gritted teeth, the groan of relief when he finished a training circuit and, the thing that caught Billy’s attention the most, the way the blonde boy’s voice rose at the end of a- How could he even give that noise a name? It wasn’t a growl, but it rough and low to be a whine, but the way he tipped his head back as he made that noise after he’d finished that thing where had to sit with his back straight and legs in the air-

Billy had choked and landed on the ground with a hard thud. He screwed up his nose and rubbed his backside a little, but froze when he heard the conversation going on downstairs.

“Seriously man, you got it bad.” 

“Shut- up- Eli- I- swear-“

“Swear what? You want me to drop you on your head?”

“Eli, be nice, you mustn’t tease someone who is in love. It'll push them to do irrational things.”

Billy crawled closer to the hole in the floor that opened up to the basement beneath. He couldn’t see his teammates, but he could hear them pretty well. He tilted his head, trying to here more, although, by the way this conversation was going, he wasn’t if he was going to be listening for long.

“I’m- not- being- irrational!” Teddy growled again, his movement becoming much more forced and jerky.

Two hundred eighty five, two hundred eighty six, two hundred eighty seven…

“Dude, we can see straight through you, it’s a wonder they hasn’t seen it themselves!” 

Billy frowned. They? Wait, Teddy liked someone? Billy felt his heart sink. He didn’t know why, it wasn’t like someone like Teddy Altman was gay anyway. He didn’t know why he was so disappointed about hearing that, but he wasn’t sure what he had been expecting to hear.

“Dammit- Eli- shut- your- face!”

“We could totally tell them for you, since you seem to mess yourselves when ever you speak to them.” 

Oh, of course. So Nate and Eli knew about this and he didn’t. Feeling a little more hurt now, Billy moved away from the opening and sat up, pulling his knees to his chest, biting his lips. Go figure, he’d crush on the attractive straight guy. He had the best luck in the world. And Teddy had been so nice and accepting too. He obviously didn’t like him as much as he thought if Eli and Nate knew this mystery girl and he didn’t.

Teddy was getting pissed off now. He would deal with this in his own time. He knew what had happened to Billy when he was confronted about his sexuality before, the last thing he wanted to do was have him misunderstand him because he could hardly form a properly worded sentence when he spoke to the smaller, dark haired boy.

Teddy had never really had a thing for girls, sure he could appreciate them, but when he had seen Billy in his Asguardian uniform, those wings framing that slender face, dark, thick material showing off the lines and contours of his lithe body he couldn’t help but feel his eyes widen and have his breath sucked from his lungs. But the thing that stuck out the most, was Billy’s hair. That dark mop was always in complete disarray, strands falling in every direction and that ridiculous cowlick, Teddy couldn’t help be smile to himself. There before him was Asguardian, be he knew it was Billy that would have his back in the field. That feeling had made his stomach churn in a good way and bad and Teddy wasn’t sure if he liked it.

Sure, at the time it had been confusing as hell and he had lost a lot of sleep over how he felt towards the smaller boy, but he didn’t want to push it away and deny everything. Billy had gone through hell because he was gay and, not necessarily open about it, but people knew. By denying he found men attractive and that he had feeling towards his teammate would almost being an insult to Billy. And the last thing Teddy wanted to do was disrespect or insult Billy in anyway.

If Billy was going to find out about this, it would be from him.

“Don’t- say- anything- to- him!” He said, focusing hard now. 

Two hundred ninety one, two hundred ninety two, two hundred ninety three…

Billy’s heart stopped. Wait, what? Him? He crawled back over and listened intently. Surely he had heard wrong. That couldn’t be right.

“Then get up and tell him yourself!” Nate rolled his eyes. “Seriously Ted, he’s not going to wait for you to pluck up the courage, if you want to tell him, just tell him!”

“But-”

Only ten more left… nine more left…

“No ‘buts’! You have to tell him-”

“But- it’s- Billy! I- can’t- ju- Whoa!” 

It seemed almost fitting that the floor should give way at that point. Billy had been crouching right at the edge of the hole in wooden boards after all.  
Billy carefully opened his eyes, dust floating and bits of wood suspended as he subconsciously levitated mere centimeters from the ground. He looked in front of him and yelped as his chest hit the floor heavily.

Teddy was looking at him, mouth open, upside down, his soaked fringe hanging limply from his head as he held his thighs. Nate and Eli were holding his legs as they had been through the entire excise and, as if on cue, both let go instantly, dropping Teddy unceremoniously on his back. It was only fair. Even if he was only one off his record, they could see he wasn’t going to get any further with it now.

“Oh crap.” Billy muttered as he realized what had just happened. He’d totally been caught eavesdropping. He was lying here, flat on his stomach, in front of a very sweat and puffed out Teddy and shocked Nate and Eli and honestly had nothing to say. 

He watched as Teddy rolled over and pulled himself to his feet, rubbing the back of his head. He turned and stared down at Billy, his expression blank as Billy scrambled to his feet, dusting himself off and ruffling that dark mop of hair that happened to sit on his head and Teddy felt that smile creep across his mouth again. How on earth had he been doubting himself? He could do this. Shaking his head a little, he took a step towards Billy.

“Hey, Billy I’ve been meaning to-” 

“Yes.”

“Ask- wait what?” 

Billy stood awkwardly, eyes staring at some mark on the wall next to him.

“I would like that. Please. Thanks, uh, Teddy, that would be nice.”

Teddy blinked and quirked an eyebrow. Billy hadn’t even let him finish.

“You know it’s rude to but I before a person had finished talking right?” He joked, stepping closer to the dark haired boy, leaning to the side to catch Billy’s eye.  
Billy tried to suppress his smile but it didn’t work and he found himself staring into deep blue eyes, butterflies churning in his stomach. He bounced on the balls of his feet for a moment before quirking a full-blown crooked smile.

“And it’s rude to keep secrets from people, especially when it’s about them.”

Teddy couldn’t help but chuckle at this and took another step forward so they were barely centimeters apart. Billy was slightly smaller than he was, but then again, he was known to partly shift when he worked out. He reached forward and hooked his index and middle finger with Billy’s pulling the other’s hand into his own and smiled and he saw Billy’s cheeks darken.

“Damn, Billy’s lucky he was right about what Teddy was going to ask him…” Eli muttered to Nate, turning around to grab his towel and toss it over his shoulders, soaking up the sweat.

“Well, when you listen in to someone’s conversation, it’s not very had to catch on.” Nate said, doing the same.

He looked over his shoulder at his friends, both standing with their hands entwined, smiling at each other. Teddy completely not caring that Billy had listened in on their conversation and Billy completely disregarding the fact that Teddy was soaked with sweat from working out. Nate felt he couldn’t help but grin.

**Author's Note:**

> I have been speaking to the lovely Campaignofmaddness on tumblr and she made me feel happy things when I wasn’t very happy so I started WRITING happy things. The exercise Teddy is doing a form of Sit Up/Chin Up we do at my martial arts and it looked dodgy watching the men do it so of course I had to write it. It is also very challenging and makes you work really hard so Teddy’s trying to focus and Nate and Eli won’t let him.  
> No its not edited, yes its 3am, I’m going to hide under a rock. Goodnight!


End file.
